Confederation: Deciding Newfoundland's Future, 1934-1949

Olaf Uwe Janzen is an associate professor of history at Memorial
University, reviews editor of The Northern Mariner, and editor of
Northern Seas.

In 1948, after 80 years of saying no, Newfoundland agreed to become a
province of Canada. The decision was reached after two referenda in
which the confederation option emerged victorious by a narrow margin
(52.3 percent in favor, 47.7 percent opposed)—so narrow, some still
argue that the outcome was determined by a conspiracy that included the
British and Canadian governments. Most historians avoid such facile
conclusions, but until now, Newfoundland’s entry into Confederation
has been analyzed only in fairly weighty studies, such as Newfoundland
in the North Atlantic World, 1929–1949 (1988) by Peter Neary and
Inside the North Atlantic Triangle: Canada and the Entrance of
Newfoundland into Confederation, 1936–1949 (1986) by David MacKenzie.

In this slim but well-crafted analysis, James Hiller presents a
thorough explication of Newfoundland’s entry into Confederation: the
background since 1864, the situation by 1945, the process by which
Newfoundland explored its political and constitutional options, the
referenda of 1948, and an assessment of the results. J.R. Smallwood
receives due attention, but Hiller does a nice job of introducing other
key players in the drama and looking at the intricacies of the decisions
made, the strategies adopted, and the opportunities missed (such as why
anticonfederates failed to mount an effective campaign in favor of
responsible government).

Striking is the degree to which Canada in 1947 ignored the lack of
authority of the Newfoundland delegation sent to Ottawa and instead
worked out some preliminary understandings of the way in which
Newfoundland might join Canada; in contrast, the British insisted that
the lack of authority of the delegation sent to London could not be
ignored, thereby crippling efforts to restore responsible government to
Newfoundland. The conspiracy theorists seize on such points. Hiller
rejects the notion of a plot to push Newfoundland into Confederation,
but agrees that “the decision to try and engineer confederation
without a return to responsible government” deserves criticism. He
concludes that few Newfoundlanders today “would want to undo that
decision taken in 1948 [but] many wish that it had been done
differently.” Hiller’s book can be recommended to students and
scholars alike.